Chapter 26 Malini #2
Yes. The council. Malini forced herself to stop looking at Priya. Dragging her gaze away, she turned her attention to the other women around her.
“A show of unity,” she said. “You will all come with me, and… I must ask you for a favor. An act of trust.”
“Ask us,” Raziya said, unflinching. “And we’ll do whatever is needful.”
“Don’t show fear,” she said. “Trust me, and be brave. That’s all I ask.”
The lords and princes were indeed waiting for her, but they were not an organized and silent audience.
Men kept coming and going, striding from where nervous groups of archers and soldiers had been placed to watch the fort’s walls for new attacks.
Every time the tent was entered by a new official, still clad in armor and heavy boots, the smoke of the battlefield was carried in. Soon the air was awash with char.
They all still bowed when Malini and her women entered; when she made her way to her dais.
She rose, but did not kneel down upon the cushions to signal the start of the council.
Instead, she stood and waited as the women settled behind her in a watchful crescent.
Waited, as the men straightened from their bows, then shifted with confused unease and then, finally, fell silent.
She saw Mahesh among them. Rao. And there, at the edge of the tent, in all his priestly colors, her brother Aditya.
“My lords,” she said finally. “I know many of you believe—and fear—that Chandra is blessed by the mothers. That the unnatural fire that has killed so many of our men is a sign that he is chosen, and I am not.” A pause, as she watched guilty eyes slide away from her own.
“But his fire is false. A lie. And I will prove it to you.”
Behind her, Lata rose and carried over the box carved from black stone.
“This was bravely obtained from the battlefield,” Malini lied.
There was no need to mention the role of the temple of the faceless mother.
This kind of gathering required a simpler story—something compelling, something their shaken faith could easily cling to.
“Unnatural fire, caught in ash and contained.” She opened the lid of the box, revealing the ash inside—and the beating heart of flame that lay twisting within it.
Someone flinched. A few men scrambled back, and she saw at least one figure slip out of the tent. But the majority remained still. She could not see the women behind her—Raziya or Lata, or Deepa or even Priya—but she was sure they were unmoved and unafraid. Just as she had asked them to be.
She calmly drew her own saber and touched it to the fire.
“There is no need to be afraid, my lords,” she said. “The fire will not hurt you.”
She had already watched a fragment of this fire gutter and die upon her blade.
Now she took what remained, a small and weakened thing, a flickering, writhing, obviously unnatural thing, with only the barest strength left within it.
In the faint breeze moving through the tent it bristled, coiling like a serpent.
“My lords, you are wise in scripture. Your ancestors were present when the mothers of flame burned for us all. So you will know, as I know, that the fire of the mothers was relentless. It did not falter. It did not dwindle. It climbed onto swords and arrows, and turned upon the yaksa until all our enemies were dead. Only then did it perish.”
She held the fire up before her, the saber steady in her hands, allowing them to look at the flame: its smallness. The way it wavered, already diminishing before their eyes.
“This fire must be carried in the ashes,” she said.
“It moves, yes, with strange power—but it does not move as mothers’ fire did, with holy intent.
” She spoke confidently. There were no priests here to disagree with her, after all.
Only Aditya, who served the nameless, and would not.
“And the fire dies,” she went on. She drew her sword in a sharp arc—and watched the last vestiges of the flame sputter away into nothing.
“This fire is not the fire of the mothers,” she said.
“Whatever Chandra has created, it is a falsehood. A shadow at best.”
Silence. Then, a roar of noise from the highborn, as the last wisps of smoke curled away from her saber, leaving the blade bare and gleaming.
She did not meet Mahesh’s eyes but oh, she wanted to. She wanted to.
“I will never disobey the messages of the mothers,” announced Malini.
“Through the nameless, they gave me my crown. If this fire had been the mothers’ fire, my lords, I would have obeyed their will and bowed my head to the rightful emperor.
But I know what I am to the mothers. I know the mothers.
” A pause. “That has never,” she said with emphasis, “been in doubt. The throne is mine, by the faceless and the nameless and by the mothers alike. I hope that eases your doubts in me. I can understand your fears today, my lords. But I will not be so understanding again.”
The men were still speaking, talking to one another or trying to gain her attention. But Malini simply kneeled at her seat. Lifted a hand and quelled them once more to silence.
It was time to return to the business of war.
“The maze fort cannot be sieged,” she said.
“Despite Lord Mahesh’s belief in this path, the inhabitants of the fort cannot be contained.
They have been clever enough to use both their fortress and the short-term strength of their false fire to their advantage.
There will be brief, savage attacks on us in the future, of that I have no doubt.
And the longer we remain here, the fewer our number will become. ”
I have trusted in the guidance of Lord Mahesh,” she went on.
“And he has served me wisely. But his failure is a message from the mothers, and one I cannot ignore.” She saw Mahesh’s chin dip forward.
The subtlest indication of shame. “We cannot remain here. We must continue to Parijat, and to the capital Harsinghar itself, and overthrow the false emperor.”
“Empress.” Lord Prakash was the one who spoke, then. “If I may.”
“I would be glad of your counsel, Lord Prakash,” she replied.
“Though the fire is not mothers’ fire, it is still a great danger,” he said.
“Many of our men are dead. If we leave this enemy behind us, I am certain we will be crushed between the High Prince’s forces and the false emperor’s, as Lord Mahesh feared when he recommended the siege.
” A murmur of agreement from the listening lords.
“It is my belief, Empress, that the battle here must be fought. The High Prince’s forces must be restrained.
But how it may be done…” He shook his head.
“That, I do not know, Empress,” he said heavily.
“We will go to Parijat,” said Malini. “Because we must. Because it is time.” Because I have the blessings of the mothers, and I command it, Malini did not say, but she knew the men understood all the same. “But some of our forces must remain here to keep the High Prince pinned.”
“Do you expect this battle to be won, Empress? Or do you ask your loyal men for a sacrifice of their own faithful warriors upon Saketa’s pyre?” This was asked by Khalil, who had a thoughtful expression on his face.
“I desire the former, but am prepared for the latter,” Malini said, with an incline of her head.
“We have seen the High Prince’s strength.
I ask for someone willing to take a risk on behalf of our campaign, to hold the High Prince’s forces at bay long enough for the war itself to be won, and Chandra dethroned. ”
“Give the task to your Ahiranyi,” Ashutosh snapped, even as Narayan frowned, placing a placating hand on his arm that was swiftly shrugged off.
Malini could almost feel Priya behind her. The shift of her body. The scent of the smoke still on her beloved skin, her hair.
“You were provided justice, Prince Ashutosh,” Malini said, barely managing to keep the frost of her irritation from her voice.
“And I require a full force of soldiers: infantry, horses. Weapons. These are not things Ahiranya’s representative can provide.
I require a willing noble, ready to act on behalf of his empire. ”
Malini looked across the tent, at all the highborn who had vowed to serve her. She did not gaze directly at Mahesh. He would do what was needful for his honor, and for Parijatdvipa. It was merely Malini’s duty to give him the opportunity.
“Will none of you make this sacrifice?” She raised her head high. “Will no one step forward and do what is needful to protect Parijatdvipa from Chandra’s rule?”
An uneasy rustle of movement. Silence.
“I will do it.”
Mahesh’s head turned, eyes wide. From the back of the tent, from a fall of shadow, Aditya stepped forward.
He was still in his priestly blues. His hair was loose—a sheet of black against his back. He did not look like a warrior. He did not look like a prince.
He bowed low. The bow of a supplicant before an emperor. Then he straightened once more, looking at her with his dark, steady eyes, his expression so very calm.
Malini was not calm. She held herself still and stared down at him, her heart hammering. She had not planned this. Oh, her fool brother. Fool.
“I will need men,” he said. “And an able general to guide me.”
“Prince Aditya,” Mahesh said swiftly. “I will serve you. In this, as in all things.”
Malini pressed her hands so hard upon her knees that she could feel her nails cut grooves into her flesh. She did not want this.
Aditya. Ah, brother, what are you doing? Why this, why now?
“Brother,” she said. He looked at her. “Prince Aditya,” she went on, forcing her voice steady. “Is this truly your wish?”
“Yes,” he said. “Empress, it is.”
No one would know how hard it was for her to remain impassive. To nod as if she condoned this, desired this.
“If I am to be without the guidance of Lord Mahesh, then I must seek a new general for my army,” she said.
This, at least, was part of her plan. “In honor of the trust held between our nations, from this moment, I will have a council of generals. A representative drawn from every nation that made vows to Divyanshi, and has now made vows to me.”
The highborn looked shocked, almost stupefied, but Malini could not be sure if it was Aditya’s rash decision or her own declaration that had silenced them. She pressed on.
“Lord Narayan, who stood by me in Srugna,” she announced. “Will you accept the position of Saketan general of my army?”
“Perhaps,” he said cautiously. “A low prince—”
“I would have you,” Malini cut in calmly. I would avoid that nest of vipers entirely, she did not say. Better raising a lord than one prince against the rest. “Will you take the honor?”
“Empress,” Narayan said, bowing low. “Yes. I accept.”
Lord Prakash of Srugna accepted easily. Lord Khalil, with the faintest, knowing smile.
“Prince Rao,” she said finally. “Who prophesied me. Will you be my general, on behalf of Alor?”
“Empress,” he said stiffly. His face was bleached of color. He was not looking at Aditya; not looking so fixedly, and with such determination, that she knew Aditya was all he could think of. “Of course.”
The noise among the men had not abated, only risen. And Malini…
Malini turned her head and peered sidelong at Priya. She could not help herself.
She could not offer Priya the position of a general of her army. She did not offer, and Priya did not ask.
Their eyes met. The noise of the highborn arguing faded like mist.
Priya raised a hand to her chest; a fist, curled against her heart.
If Malini touched her own fingertips to the needle-flower on a chain at her throat—if she looked at Priya and felt helplessly thankful, grateful that she was here—then that was no one’s business but her own.